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Long after the bowl shatters beneath Yasha’s sword, she swears she can still feel the electricity burning and jumping between her fingers. She wonders what it means as they gather themselves, battle worn and weary, and climb back into the shack to where Kiri waits for them. But like many things with gods, there are many questions and fewer answers.
Now the battle blankness has faded from her mind, there are far too many thoughts in it. Dashing themselves against her skull. Now she can only think of how fear had burnt away the cool blank of her rage, left her sword useless in her hand as the troll stepped away from her.
“I should go,” Cali says and hugs Jester - a hug the tiefling returns with interest, lifting her partially off the floor before setting her back on her feet carefully. “But really, thank you so much for all of your help.” She hugs Beau, who goes straight and stiff - and then pats her awkwardly on the back.
Then her eyes - one green, one bright yellow - settle on Yasha and the sword slung across her back. “Be careful. Really. Don’t trust anyone in dragon masks. They’re very dangerous.”
“Thank you for the warning,” she says lowly, crossing her arms, “I’ll keep it in mind.”
And then Cali is gone, with a few more assurances that she and Jester will write each other.
“How do you...feel?” asks Molly as they watch the sorcerer leave. His tail twitches in the air. It reminds her of Frumpkin.
She shrugs. “Fine.”
He eyes her. “Alright. Just be cautious. We don’t want to deal with cultists on top of - everything.” He waves a hand at the sullen silence of the rest of the Mighty Nein. “Do you think you could do that because of…?”
He trails off. Yasha looks down at her hands, flexing her fingers a little. “Maybe.”
Mollymauk knows more about her than almost anyone living. And he didn’t care. She didn’t know what to do with that.
He touches her shoulder, just a gentle swipe of his fingers against the material of her shawl, and then moves towards Fjord. He knows that sometimes she needs silence as much as he needs others around him. Words are hard. At some point between her brain and her mouth they get all jumbled up.
“I think we oughta stay here for the night,” Fjord says to them, rubbing his face. He holds his shoulders square but there’s an exhaustion to the set of his form and he moves as gingerly as - Beau does. “Not much sunlight left.”
“Ya.” Beau sits heavily with a wince. Her clothes are torn and eaten away in places, and in places her skin looks raw and painful, but she bats away Jester’s attempts to cast another spell on her with a gruff, “Save it for tomorrow.”
Yasha can see it very clearly. The look on Jester’s face. The marsh squelching beneath her boots as she ran, her hands slippery on the hilt of her sword, the cool blank of her mind fracturing into panic. She’d tried. But the troll had only run faster.
She realises she’s staring when her eyes meet the clear blue of Beau’s. She looks away but when Nott hands out hard travel bread, she sits down beside her. She can feel the warmth of her despite the space between them.
“Heey,” Beau draws out in between bites.
“How do you feel?” She stares down at her own meal.
“Like the night after a particularly good bar fight.” Beau smirks, and Yasha isn’t sure whether to be irritated - you nearly died, damnit - or find it a little amusing. She understands enjoying a good fight. It’s the one thing she’s good at.
Yasha releases a huff of air. She has things, rattling in her head that she wants to say, the things that had burst into being when she’d seen the monk limp and still. Things like I like you. I think you’re attractive, charming. I’ve thought about what it’d be like to kiss you. I enjoy the way you look at me. I was afraid for you. Be careful.
But for a second, looking down, in between blinks, she can see the blood dripping down her forearms and her hands. Splashed on her clothes, soaking her boots and none of it her own.
Yasha doesn’t do people very well at all but she knows that if she were to kiss Beau, she wouldn’t be pushed away. Would Beau be soft or hard with her mouth, her hands? Would she be demanding or pleading?
But Yasha remembers the blood and the still of bodies at her feet. She remembers who she used to be. It can’t happen. She doesn’t deserve it.
“I can help,” she says abruptly, straightening, pushing away the warm thoughts of Beau’s hands on her, her hands on Beau. “You’re in pain.”
“Uh, well, I mean - “
"Give me your arm.”
Beau hesitates only a moment before she extends her arm, lets Yasha press her calloused hand to the warm skin. Yasha breathes in, find the searing light that she can sometimes catch within herself, and channels the brief burst of healing energy through herself and into Beau’s dark skin.
“Huh. That’s pretty cool. One of those angel things you do?”
Yasha drops her hands and clears her throat. “Yes, I think.”
“Very cool. Just so you know.” Beau gives her a thumbs up.
“I should, uh, take the first watch, since you and Fjord are hurt.”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure. I’ll get some sleep.”
Yasha rises to her feet and settles where she could see both the door and the drop down to where they’d fought the fishmen, sword beside her. It later, when the rest of the Nein are asleep but for Molly on watch with her - Nott curled against Caleb’s back, Kiri sandwiching herself between Jester and Beau - that she feels the storm roll in, somewhere deep in her bones before even the patter of rain on the safehouse’s roof begins.
Her name is being called in the cracks of thunder. Yash-a, Yash-a. Yasha. A comfort, a demand.
Yasha closes her eyes briefly, then grabs her sword and rises . She meets Molly’s eyes - his calm, accepting eyes.
“I have to go.”
“I know.”
She resists the urge to look at the sleeping monk, the urge to wake her to say goodbye and say be careful , and gathers her things in the quiet.
Yasha steps out into the rain, cold slicking her hair to her skin, breathing in the scent of rain, and doesn’t look back. There are debts she has to pay.